Cruise Passengers Arrested With Heroin In Shoes

Customs Bureau Police got an unexpected kick last week when they nabbed some 6.48 kilograms of heroin worth $324,000 in a bag of shoes owned by a disembarking cruise passenger. The tip off? The shoes in question turned out to be 15 pairs of 1980s-style men's shoes ported by a 32-year-old female.

Diana Hortencia Latigua-Lorenzo, a U.S. citizen, and her brother, Breidy Latigua-Lorenzo, 20, a U.S. permanent resident and citizen of the Dominican Republic were arrested in San Juan, Puerto Rico as they were leaving Royal Caribbean's Serenade of the Seas after a seven-day cruise in the Caribbean.

Customs officials accustomed to looking at signs of nervousness tabbed the duo for a secondary screening but hit pay dirt when a look in the luggage revealed the odd bundle of shoes.

"It just did not seem right that a stylish woman of that age would be taking a cruise with 15 pairs of 20- or 30-year-old men's shoes," said Jeffrey Quinones of the CBP Public Affairs office in San Juan

"It might not have seemed so odd had they been a mix of fashionable women's shoes," said Quinones.

The pair remain in custody according to a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's office.